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Shapira, Dan: review of: William F. Ryan / Mosheh Ṭaubeh (eds.),

The Secret of Secrets – The East Slavic Version. Introduction, Text,
Annotated Translation, and Slavic Index, London: Warburg
Institute, 2019, in: Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas /
jgo.e-reviews, JGO 70 (2022), 3-4, p. 541-542,
https://www.recensio.net/r/b76462822e834e0fa1048b23401175e7

First published: Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas /

jgo.e-reviews, JGO 70 (2022), 3-4

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Rezensionen 541

would be especially relevant given the gendered religious rhetoric in Russia’s current war against
Ukraine. That war also gives the topics in this excellent book a grim resonance. One might take
some consolation from the notion of demilitarization. In times of peace, bellicose saints and liturgi-
cal services to them could be toned down (compare the peace-celebrating joint service for the trans-
fer of relics of Alexander Nevsky and the Treaty of Nystadt (1721) to the venomous one composed
for the 1709 Battle of Poltava). In their day, Princes Boris and Gleb became political ideals precisely
because they instructed Rus’ princes not to fight one another (a model rejected by Vladimir Putin).
When Christians become serious about reconsidering the glorifying of war, nation, and violence
in their traditions, the essays in this volume will be an excellent – and chastening – place to start.

Nadieszda Kizenko
Albany, NY

JGO 70, 2022/3–4, 541–542

The Secret of Secrets – The East Slavic Version. Introduction, Text, Annotated
Translation, and Slavic Index
Ed. by W. F. Ryan and Moshe Taube. London: Warburg Institute, 2019. XIII, 544 S.,
1 Abb. = Warburg Institute Studies and Texts, 7. ISBN: 978-1-908590-73-2.

The pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum Secretorum, consisting of two Latin translations of Sirr al-Asrār
(The Secret of Secrets) written in Arabic in the 10th century, was a very popular book to copy pri-
or to the Early Modern period. Pretending to be Aristotle’s letters of political, medical, and oc-
cult advice to his pupil, Alexander the Great, it is summarizing all the knowledge necessary for a
mighty ruler and was composed like a medieval encyclopaedia. The work as translated into He-
brew is known under the title Sod ha-Sodoth (The Secret of Secrets), and in the mid-15th century,
the Hebrew text was translated in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into the western variant of East-
ern Slavonic as Tajnaja Tajnykh (The Secret of Secrets; it is likely that the work was mentioned in
Slavonic under other names as well). The Slavonic text contains interpolations from other Hebrew
works translated from Arabic, and some additional material, and it seems that the Tajnaja Tajnykh
was somehow tainted by the already translated Slavonic reworkings of the Alexanderroman (the
Alexander Romance). The history of the Slavonic text of the Tajnaja Tajnykh as a translation of
the Hebrew Sod ha-Sodoth was overlooked or mistreated in the previous scholarship, and now, this
bilingual text edition with extensive notes and indices, a monumental and industrious product of
Will Ryan and Moshe Taube’s encyclopaedic learning, interdisciplinary insights, and perfect schol-
arship, finally fills this gap. One can be certain that this edition will remain the standard edition of
the Slavonic version.
This impressive book of 544 pages contains a well-written Introduction (pp. 1–82, with a list
of existing manusripts on pp. 69–80); the original Slavonic texts as established by the editors and
translated into English, both with copious notes, (pp. 84–369); a Bibliography (pp. 370–379); and
a Slavic index consisting of 128 pages with every Slavonic word cross-referenced with its Hebrew
542 rezensionen

counterpart and textual citations. The authors worked with 27 Slavonic manuscripts of Tajnaja
­Tajnykh (dated to the period between the fifteenth and the nineteenth centuries), 43 Hebrew man-
uscripts of Sod ha-Sodoth, many of them by Byzantine and Karaite hands (dated to the 14th to the
19th centuries), with references to 7 Arabic manuscripts of Sirr al-Asrār (from the 12th to the 18th
centuries).
The translation of Sod ha-Sodoth into Slavonic seems to be one of the results of the activities of
Zechariah b. Aharon ha-Kohen of Kyiv, who was active between 1454 and 1485 (and possibly later;
cf. pp. 16–24), and/or Moses b. Jacob of Kyiv (1448–1520) (cf. pp. 25–30, p. 39), later the founder of
the united Rabbanite community in the Crimea. Much can be said and, indeed, was said and will be
said, about these two illustrious men.
“There is a strong probability that” both the Tajnaja Tajnykh and “the Logika of the Judaiz-
ers” (ed. by Moshe Taube) “were the work of the same translator(s)” (p. 59). The work “was first
translated […] for its political and ethical message and for its medical advice” (p. 69). Directly
or indirectly, the translated text served, for a while, as a stimulating factor in ideological disputes
surrounding Ivan IV of Muscovy (r. 1533–1584), with “echoes […] in Ivan IV’s political opinions”
(p. 63), and even Ivan’s appellative, “Grozny” (awe-inspiring, but generally translated as “Terrible”)
ultimately goes back to the Slavic translation of the “Jewish text translated from a tenth-century
Muslim pseudepigraph attributed to Aristotle” (p. 62). The political advice of the book “intended
for either the ruling princes in Kiev or Ivan III of Muscovy” (r. 1462–1505) “was particularly rele-
vant in the turbulent reign of Ivan IV” and “scholars have seen possible influence […] in the works
of Maxim the Greek, Ivan Peresvetov, and Prince Andrej Kurbskij” (p. 61); in 2010, the translated
composition was “hailed as the foundation of Russian legal thought and constitutionalism” (p. 68).
The history of this pseudo-Aristotelian composition and its many translations is a good story in
itself; the text, itself, is an excellent read for a modern reader, too. Congratulations go to Will Ryan
and Moshe Taube for their excellent bilingual edition.

Dan Shapira
Kfar-Eldad, Israel

JGO 70, 2022/3–4, 542–544

Fabian Thunemann
Verschwörungsdenken und Machtkalkül. Herrschaft in Russland, 1866–1953
Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2019. IX, 259 S. = Ordnungssysteme.
Studien zur Ideengeschichte der Neuzeit, 53. ISBN: 978-3-11-061647-7.

Eine bekannte antike Parabel besagt, dass der Tyrann Dionysios von Syrakus einem neidischen
Günstling namens Damokles angeboten habe, einen Tag lang das Leben eines Herrschers zu füh-
ren. Nachdem Damokles reichlich vom herrschaftlichen Luxus gekostet hatte, befahl Dionysios,
ein Schwert über dem Nacken des Mannes aufzuhängen. Gehalten wurde es von einem Rosshaar.
Damokles’ Appetit war verständlicherweise verdorben. In dieser Parabel, die das Spannungsver-